During World War II Edward Allen Carter Jr, an African American who rose to the rank of Sergeant First Class in the US Army, faced plenty of discrimination because of the color of his skin. An antifascist to the core, he gritted his teeth and put up with it in order to get at the bad guys, and serve his country while he was at it. Carter displayed extraordinary heroism that the military authorities downplayed for over half a century. He was finally – and belatedly, decades, after he had already passed away – posthumously awarded the country’s most prestigious award, the Medal of Honor. Below are fifteen fascinating but lesser known facts about the amazing life and military career of this unsung and little known American hero.
15. An Unsung Real Life Action Hero
As of 1925, there have maybe been a dozen Spiderman remakes, who knows how many Sharknadoes, and seemingly a hundred Fast & the Furious franchise movies. So it is odd that Hollywood has never gotten around to making a movie about Edward Allen Carter, Jr. His biography reads like a real life action adventure epic in which, just like a hero from the comics, he donned a figurative cape, and journeyed all over the planet to fight monsters wherever they could be found. And to top it off, the man had movie star good looks. Carter’s life could be summed up in this: he wanted to fight bad guys, of whom there were many in his lifetime, and he went at them whenever he could with might and mien.
